Whiteley Creek Homestead

Several years ago… O.K., let's get real here. Several implies a few. Three or four. More accurately, upwards of 25 years ago, I clipped a recipe from a Family Circle or Woman's Day Magazine. 

Called Double Chip Bars, I made the recipe today. Not to be confused with a Double Chip Bars recipe, originally published in the Taste of Home Quick Cooking Recipe Book copyright July/August 1999 p.10, that is floating around the Internet. The two recipes, that each make a 9×13 pan, are vastly different. The Taste of Home version calls for 1/2 cup butter, 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, 1-14 oz can sweetened condensed milk, 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, 1 cup peanut butter chips. That's a whopping mass of sweet! Here's the Family Circle/Woman's Day version that I tweaked to reduce the sugar content and still it is plenty satisfying for a sweet treat.

The dough and the baked bars…     

The bar with icing…

Double Chip Bars

1 ½ cups flour (I used a mixture of freshly ground barley,
oats, and a bit of spelt.)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¼ cup butter or margarine

¼ cup peanut butter

2/3 1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 1/3 cup granulated sugar (I used raw sun-dried
cane juice which has the texture of white sugar but is the color of brown
sugar.)

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cup white chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli
brand.)

1 cup milk chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli brand.)

½ cup sweetened unsweetened flake coconut

½ cup chopped peanuts (I used walnuts.)

Drizzle:

¼ cup white chocolate chips

½ tsp oil (or water*)

Heat oven to 350°. Line a 13×9-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, letting foil overhang edges; generously coat foil with oil. (I used natural parchment paper allowing it to come up a bit on two sides of the pan then lightly coated with oil. The baked bars easily come out of the pan.) In a bowl, stir whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a saucepan, melt together the butter and peanut butter, then remove from the heat. Stir in the sugars until blended. Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture, white and milk chocolate chips, coconut, and nuts. Mixture will be stiff. Press batter evenly into prepared pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes. (I'd go 25 minutes otherwise they get too firm.) Transfer pan to wire rack to cool completely. To make drizzle, melt together white chocolate chips and oil in microwave about 1 minute. Stir until smooth. (I subbed water for oil and used a toaster oven's warm setting instead. The chips don't take long to melt. Stirring until smooth, add a little more water, if necessary, to achieve a drizzly consistency.) Scrape the melted mixture into a small plastic bag; snip off the corner and quickly drizzle over the pan of bars. (I drizzled with a spoon instead.) Cut into twelve or twenty-four bars.